A long-term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) heterogeneous network system consists of a macro cell, a femto cell, a pico cell, a remote radio head (RRH) and a relay. Although the capacity of system may be improved, better services may be provided to users in special areas and performances of the system may be optimized by deploying new wireless nodes (such as a home eNodeB, a pico eNodeB, and an RRH), the newly-deployed nodes will bring interference to the users of the originally deployed cell, even resulting in certain coverage holes.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a heterogeneous network system. As shown in FIG. 1, in a typical macro cell plus pico cell heterogeneous network, the user equipment (UE) at an edge B of the pico cell receiving services the pico cell is subject to the interference of the downlink signals from a macro cell A, as indicated by the dotted lines in FIG. 1.
Currently, in an LTE-A heterogeneous network, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is transmitted in a broadcasting manner, so that the interference to the pico cell caused by the PDCCH of the macro cell is undirectional. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of downlink interference in a heterogeneous network, a solution of almost blank subframe (ABS) is employed in an LTE-A heterogeneous network. Wherein some of the subframes in the macro cell are selected as ABSs, in which no control signaling used for scheduling any UE to transmit data is transmitted, and no data corresponding to any UE is transmitted. At a temporal location corresponding to the ABSs, the pico cell may transmit control signaling used for scheduling data of UE in the pico cell, and corresponding data, thereby suppressing interference from the macro cell.
However, in the implementation of the present invention, the inventors found that following defect exists in the prior art: when ABS is adopted for interference coordination, the throughput of the macro cell will be lowered, and the resources cannot be utilized efficiently. No method in prior art can solve the above problem.
It should be noted that the above description of the background art is merely provided for clear and complete explanation of the present invention and for easy understanding by those skilled in the art. And it should not be understood that the above technical solution is known to those skilled in the art as it is described in the background art of the present invention.